Nicholas Jones, former BBC political correspondent, recounting a Royal Television Society event held in June:
Ceri Thomas said the political blogosphere had a resonance in Westminster but it did not have a great purchase outside Westminster. But the Today programme now realised the importance of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. ‘I get more story ideas from Twitter than from anywhere else… it has become the single most useful way to get information although that was not the case during the general election’.
Out: if it bleeds, it leads. In: if the luvvies tweet it, Today will repeat it.
Where once BBC editors would have to wait until the next dinner party to hear the bleeding-heart concerns of like-minded media types, now it’s all instant – news determined by the daily fancies of the right-on metropolitan echo chamber. Same as it ever was, only more so.
(Luckily for the Today programme Stephen Fry hasn’t expressed an opinion on the dropping of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.)
Well we know that there are plenty of camp left wing tweeters out there. The BBC is obsessed with Twitter, Richard Bacon being a classic.
Out: if it bleeds, it leads. In: if the luvvies tweet it, Today will repeat it.
hahaha, very good. It is also sad that the BBC has admitted this, OK it isn’t the lead on the 6 and 10 o’clock news but it does strike me as pathetic. Twitter really is a craze for within the M25 (where, I wouldn’t mind betting, about 90% of the UK twitterers live or work)
Out: if it bleeds, it leads. In: if the luvvies tweet it, Today will repeat it.
This also explains nearly all BBC News Online coverage of US issues. Nice one, DB.
Twitter is for children !
Ah well, everyone says I’m a big kid.
I fear i must express a slightly different view.
I find it an amazing source of information… if used correctly. And that, I submit, is a key aspect.
I have signed up to a very eclectic, broad range of twitterers, based mainly on their ability to share respected info and, especially, URLs in support. With the odd insightful opinion if lobbed in appreciated. Across many interests of mine: environment, design, media, politics, etc.
One thing is for sure, and the analogy with the BBC’s interpretation of ‘news’ gathering is clear as day, is that if you surround yourself with like minded folk, all singing from the same hymn sheet, only sharing stuff that ticks your tribal or agenda-centric box, you will merely have prejudices reinforced.
Which explains so much, frankly.
That a multi-million news organisation sources and spins up its world view on this basis is risible.
A luvvie has a thought. Another few share it and embellish, and next thing you know is that collective knicker-twister of often but a few hundred folk tweeting on iPhones (when they are probably all with a few hundred yards of each other in Islington coffee bars) is merely pathetic, professionally.
Or… unique.
Guest who,
Apologies to you, I rather shot my mouth off there ! I take your point .
None taken 🙂 Wasn’t personal, anyhoo.
Plus, I might be totally wrong.
That’s the distinction between fact and opinion… not that Aunty seems to have grasped the diff.